iRacing.com – 2012 Season 2 Build Available

iRacing.com has launched the newest build of their online racing simulation, adding two brand new content items and lots of improvements to the simulation.

The new build adds the Cadillac CTS-V race car to iRacing, the new car is available for free for all iRacing subscribers. Furthermore, the Japanese Twin Ring Motegi is now available for purchase, coming with various layouts including oval & road configuration.

The new version also introduces new track shaders and plenty of other new features & improvements as you can see for yourself in the detailed release notes below.

To give you an idea what the new content is about, below is a video showing the Cadillac in action at Motegi. Furthermore, Pablo Lopez has created a very quick reality check, showing off the accuracy of both the road & oval layout of Motegi.

Click Here For The Full Release Notes

Website:

Hosted Sessions

You can now restrict hosted session results to participants only. The checkbox is located in the “OPTIONAL SETTINGS” section of the “HOST A RACE” page. When this flag is set the system will check to make sure that the current user was a participant in the session before either displaying the event results popup or generating event results in csv format.

You can now restrict the viewing / spectating of hosted sessions. This checkbox is also located in the “OPTIONAL SETTINGS” section of “HOST A RACE” page. For this release viewing can be restricted by club only. When this flag is set the system will check to see if the session is restricted to members of one or more clubs. If so it will ensure that the current user is a member of one of the eligible clubs before allowing them into the session as a spectator. This flag will have no effect if you do not restrict the session to one or more clubs. This feature will be expanded in the future to support leagues and teams as well.

You can now specify the maximum amount of fuel that can be loaded into a car. This is specified as a percentage of the car’s maximum fuel capacity and should be an integer between 10 and 100. For example if a car has a max fuel capacity of 20 gallons and you specify 50% the sim will not allow you to fill beyond 10 gallons of fuel. **NOTE: This feature will not be available until later in the week due to last minute technical issues.

UltimatePay Support

UltimatePay is a new payment type that can be used for buying everything except gift certificates and gift recharges. The system supports more than 70 different payment methods worldwide and automatically customizes your payment options based on your country.

This system works differently from the existing credit card and PayPal options in that the transaction is not completed immediately. In some instances such as with the Ultimate Game Card the transaction completes almost immediately but with others such as Western Union it can take much longer.

Additionally, iRacing does not receive any notification of failed or canceled transactions. As a result you will always see an Ultimate Pay Order Information page after you close the UltimatePay popup window. You will see this whether you completed the transaction or simply canceled out of the popup.

For example, let’s say you decide to purchase a car using Boku with your mobile phone. The general flow is you initiate the purchase on the iRacing Member’s site from a popup window presented by UltimatePay. UltimatePay alerts Boku and they will send a text message to your phone. You respond to the text message to complete the purchase. Boku alerts UltimatePay that you completed the purchase and UltimatePay alerts iRacing. At this point iRacing will fulfill the purchase and send you an email to let you know that your car is ready to be downloaded.

It is important to note that some of the payment methods will charge a fee in addition to your order total. iRacing does not control these fees. Please pay close attention to any fee disclosures when completing your transaction.

An additional note is that iRacing is not supporting any recurring payments using UltimatePay at this time.

Site Footer

A new lap counter has been added to the site footer. This displays a recent snapshot of the total laps run across the service since the start of iRacing.

Friends/Watched

It is now possible to remove a friend or watch request to yourself, if you get yourself into that state.

Spectating

The spectating timer will now be 20 seconds for most events. For larger events (some world tour events, etc) the spectating timer will remain at 60 seconds.

Renewals

Fixed a bug where gift cards could not be added to renewal orders.

Simulation:

Graphics

– The graphics engine now supports assignable programmable pixel shaders and multi-texturing on race track related surfaces. Our new track Motegi features this improvement, and New Smyrna also has been updated.

– Visibility culling of track surface decals has been improved, with an emphasis on reducing the number of decals visibly popping in.

– The work-around that helps avoid missing scenery when AMD’s adaptive anti-aliasing is enabled is now always automatically enabled for everyone. The previous setting to enable this option in renderer.ini is now ignored.

– By default pan speed is tied to the zoom level of the camera. We have added an app.ini [CamTool] useLinearPan=0.0 value to let you blend between a constant pan speed, or one that slows down with higher zoom levels.

– Added in a non-linear scaling to the analog camera controls. Can be adjusted with an app.ini setting.

– You can adjust the relative speeds of each of the analog controls (move, pan/tilt, zoom) using an app.ini setting.

– Fixed a bug in the depth of field effect.

– Fixed a divide by zero bug in joystick calibration, which may sometimes have crashed the sim.

Spotter

– Fixed the bug that caused the spotter to incorrectly call ‘go low’ when you should ‘go high’.

– Radio on/off sounds should work more consistently now.

– Reduced the number of samples needed to call out numbers.

– Spotter packs can now select a message from a list of possible messages to add variety. You can add up to 100 custom samples per message.

– Added in a center front splitter ride height sensor to some cars (CFSRrideHeight). This is currently available for the Chevrolet Impala, Chevrolet Impala Class B, Chevrolet Silverado, HPD ARX-01c, and Williams FW31.

– Added a new parameter ReplayFrameNumEnd that shows you how far from the end of tape the replay head is.

– Added new parameters SessionTimeRemain, and SessionLapsRemain indicating time/laps left in race.

Sounds

– All cars have had their engine/wind/tire volumes balanced to match actual recordings. Many cars have new samples so they sound even better.

– Updated scrape and crash sounds.

– Off throttle volumes should now be louder.

– Most cars have a new low frequency sub-wave sound designed to drive sub-woofers better.

– Fixed a bug where loading a replay could use external engine sounds instead of cockpit engine sounds when in cockpit view.

Driver Aids

– Improved the anti-stall clutch aid to allow anti-stall to be released if the car is rolling fast enough that it wouldn’t stall the motor to do so. This fixes the problem where locking the drive wheels in a braking zone would result in the antistall clutch staying active until next time the throttle is applied even if the brake pedal was released to free up the locked wheels.

Shifting

– Fixed a problem where initiating a sequential upshift with automatic throttle cut while the engine was already being cut by the rev limiter would cause upshift delays.

New Tire Model

– Fixed an issue where a very lightly loaded tire would lose stiffness, resulting in a “floaty” feeling in the lightly loaded tire.

Drafting

– We have improved the drafting math to be more aware of exactly where the edges of a car are, so the exact amount of draft you get for being bumper to bumper or side to side is much more consistent as speed varies, and for cars of different dimensions.

Car Sponsors

– National Guard sponsorship added.

Cadillac CTS-VR

– New car! And it has been given to everyone for free!

Chevrolette Corvette C6R

– Removed unused light flare model from Corvette C6r that could show up in unwanted places when the car was damaged.

Chevrolet Impala

– Now has a new driver model, hands look much better.

– Aero updates to improve accuracy performance.

– Changes to how this car drafts at super speedway tracks.

– Improvements to engine cooling and gauge precision to help racing in traffic or the draft.

– Drag penalty has been increased when certain parts of the car are damaged.

– Adjustable bumpstops have been added along with packer (shim) adjustments.

– Grill tape can now be set based on a choice of 5 options – Min, 25%, 50%, 75% and Full. Tape can be adjusted during pitstops.

– Fuel pressure now displays as if car is fitted with fuel injection instead of carburetion.

– Collision model adjustments to prevent excessive ‘submarining’ when running into the car directly in front.

– Reduced tire pressure adjustment range.

– Reduced cross weight adjustment range on pit road.

– Tire updates.

Chevrolet Impala Class B

– Aero updates to improve accuracy performance.

– Changes to how this car drafts at super speedway tracks.

– Improvements to engine cooling and gauge precision to help racing in traffic or the draft.

– Drag penalty has been increased when certain parts of the car are damaged.

– Grill tape can now be set based on a choice of 5 options – Min, 25%, 50%, 75% and Full. Tape can be adjusted during pitstops.

– Collision model adjustments to prevent excessive ‘submarining’ when running into the car directly in front.

– Reduced tire pressure adjustment range.

– Reduced cross weight adjustment range on pit road.

– More rear-end gear options for short tracks.

– Tire updates.

Chevrolet Impala SS 2009

– Updated to use the New Tire Model.

– Aero updates to improve accuracy performance.

– Changes to how this car drafts at super speedway tracks.

– Improvements to engine cooling and gauge precision to help racing in traffic or the draft.

– Drag penalty has been increased when certain parts of the car are damaged.

– Collision model adjustments to prevent excessive ‘submarining’ when running into the car directly in front.

– Reduced tire pressure adjustment range.

– Reduced cross weight adjustment range on pit road.

Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS

– Now has a new driver model, hands look much better.

– Collision model adjustments to prevent excessive ‘submarining’ when running into the car directly in front.

Chevrolet Silverado

– New driver model, hands look much better.

– Aero updates to improve accuracy performance.

– Changes to how this car drafts at super speedway tracks.

– Improvements to engine cooling and gauge precision to help racing in traffic or the draft.

– Drag penalty has been increased when certain parts of the car are damaged.

– Collision model adjustments to prevent excessive ‘submarining’ when running into the car directly in front.

Related Articles

whats your thoughts? I need more time with it but generally i don’t feel it handles naturally at all! maybe thats partially down to the baseline set but im not sure?

Richard Hessels

A good setup makes the Caddy much better.

Still there is this anoying thing of snap oversteer at very low speeds.
There is tons of settings to play with.
So good setups make a lot of difference.
It’s not really a rookie car in my opinion, the trusty V8 goes around the corner bit more easy.

Anonymous

yeah thats what i found too, at slow speeds its easy to lose the rear, they should make the baseline have a nice dose of understeer to make the car more approachable for rookies, I found i have to drive it similar to the V8, its all about the smallest of inputs.

General Rush Hour

I´ve been doing some serious lapping in the car and my conclusion is the rear wing.
It feels like it´s producing lift rather then downforce. And the bad part is we can´t change it.
So now the car is so sensitive to what height the front splitter is.
If it´s close to the ground you have 100% downforce on the front, rear end steps out.
If it´s not close to the ground you will get understeer due to loss of front downforce.
If we could change the angle of the rear wing we could dial out 99% of the oversteer sensitivity this car has.

Low speed oversteer can be dialed out pretty good by tweaking the diff.
So the car pushes instead of wanting to over-rotate.

Anonymous

thanks for the tips will play around with the diff and see how it helps at the weekend!!! My knowledge of setup is poor but im learning!! so in theory getting the front up higher would be a good start to stop the thing oversteering like crazy?

General Rush Hour

If you raise the front you will get understeer when not braking
And when you do brake it will hit the ground anyways

It will be tailhappy in medium to high speed corners simply down to the lack of adjustability of the rear wing.

Best NTM version so far !
With a good setup, the Cadillac became the most interesting car
And new sounds change everything.

Roger Owen

Dont forget the MX5!!! (wow)

Anonymous

The brief release notes betray how much of an improvement this iteration is. As big of a step towards drivability as last seasons build. Seems to have less load sensitivity, so BB can be less forward and spins can be caught more easily. It all just feels tighter and more under control.

Cadillac is a car that I feel relatively comfortable in, and I usually prefer slower cars. Not too much power, so you can get on the throttle solidly pretty early. Seems so long as I don’t make mid corner corrections, it behaves quite well. Much easier to catch slides than most of the cars two builds ago.

Anonymous

disappointed with this built basically nothing new except for the track and car. Motegi is fun but it’s just another track in there adds to the line up pretty well. The Cadillac feels right the baseline is ridiculous impossible to drive once you spend over 5 hours tweaking the car it feels like it’s real life counterpart big heavy over-powered and slow. iRacing did a great job with it although it has some bugs like not passing the Mid-Ohio test but it has become one of my favorite cars to drive in iRacing.

Anonymous

I feel the same, its a nice car but the baseline set is undrivable, considering its open to all the base set should be safe!! I always find the more time i spend with a car or track the more i love it! Motegi is a really great circuit and nice addition! and as always they have out done themselves graphically with this one!

Anonymous

Sounds still are very flat to me. I wish sim devs could go to the next level with sounds as they have with physics, we need a whole new way of looking at sounds, not having wav files being played at different pitches but creating a dynamic engine that recreates every sound coming off a racecar, as well as every different part of the engine.

General Rush Hour

We have to be able to change the angle of attack for the rear wing.

This is the main cause we have a tail happy rear end.
It´s like the wing is producing lift rather then downforce.

EDIT: wrong button, this isn´t a reply to Wilsch above

Big Ron

And you will still need audio-files to play it

How should it be possible to recreate sound coming from every part of the engine? You can just record the engine sound in complete…..cause it is just functional as a whole.

tgn motorsports

is this the amazing don wilsch? or was that don wilsche?

amazing coder that worked on n2002/3 mods.

Anonymous

I didn’t get what all the buzz was on this “nsm” imo it’s completely synthetic just like before. I had two Lambos just pass my house man those things made me run from the hall to the balcony of my flat just to hear the sound of it the synthetic sound in iRacing is no where near the real thing.

Anonymous

Well, they also aren’t anywhere near done with updates. Should be more sound improvements in the next few seasons to keep making it sound less weak.

Anonymous

what speaker system you got? that would make a difference too!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=796758915 Sam Stratten

I noticed the road and wind noise is very different on the Mazda MX5. Tyre noise is dramatically different. Overun on the C6R is louder and so is throttle off. Diff whines, debris and rocks can all be heard much clearer now than before. I play with Logitech G35 headphones so you don’t miss a thing with closed cup speakers.

Hans Brauer

Still no driver changes

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HEJQFMZIIWS55MFDYTKUR2F5KI Firefox

Yup I want them too

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=796758915 Sam Stratten

So now that we have the HPD-ARX and Twin Ring Motegi, now we just need the 3rd piece of the puzzle. The Honda HSV Super GT car.

Post it on the “Problem Reporting” boards. Why would they check here for bug reporting?

Anonymous

I believe the baseline setup lifts the inside front tire off the ground. Is that what’s happening here in conjunction with dragging the brake? Otherwise, use problem reporting on the forums or file a bug report.

Anonymous

Bakkster unfortunately that’s not the case seems like a suspension bug. I’ve tried many different settings but doesn’t solve the issue you can try do stick the car to the ground the FR will lift sometimes the FL as well.